I play video games and review them.

Castle Chase

When the king forces Princess Monica Logelin to marry the arrogant prince of a neighboring kingdom, she retaliates by skipping out on her studies. She goes searching around the castle to find herself nothing more and nothing less than a date.

Chances are you read that summary and thought, “that’s what I do, I just run around the castle trying to get a boyfriend?” and let me tell you that is exactly what the game is about. You collect items and talk to various men in order to win their affection. Now you are thinking, “A girl running around trying to get affection from guys? Yeah like women need to try hard to get a date.” However, she does have an arranged marriage, and she does have many silent admirers. I can actually believe this, because I doubt anyone working in the castle would admit to having a thing for the princess, considering that there are some serious classism issues with it. There’s even an ending where you don’t have to get with anyone and just flirt around town, which is the ending I marked as canon. To me, that seems the most free and none of the men particularly stand out to me. Oh, did I mention that you could choose which ending you consider the real ending?

There’s not a whole lot to say about this game. Sure, you can determine whether Monica’s spoiled sweet or a royal brat. You can even view character profiles and a trailer for the sequel when you’ve completed it (in all reality, this felt more like a prequel). I suppose it is somewhat anti-feminist that the goal of the main character was to get a boyfriend, but she is a sheltered teenage girl and teenagers aren’t very wise. In addition, I really wish there was an option to skip unread text, because I had to read the same dialogue repeatedly, it was irritating. I give this game 4 out of 10, it’s not great, but it’s something to do and it doesn’t cost anything. In addition, the sequel shows much more promise.